Synthetic II Pro

being my first phase distortion experience, i can't compare 'synthetic' to others of it's ilk, but from what i've heard about casios i'm very glad we've got an option..

there's way more to the oscs on 'synthetic' than your standard osc1/osc2 subtractive, altho it can work as such. runs the gamut of patches.. bass, pads, et al, the thing for bleeps and synth percussion, cascading 'algorithmic' sounds ala early 90's rave hardcore (always figured they were pd.)

the sound is, well.. 'synthetic,' in exactly the way that is good.. jorgen's aesthetic wins major points with me for being well organised and flexible. this is a synth designed to get some use instead of flicking through presets or twiddling cutoff.. a tool for synthesists.. :) but if presets are what you want, they're there.

i gave the presets a '6' since i can't be bothered to find a way to jury-rig logic yet.. (i guess it's not that hard..) there are several banks on jorgen's homepage and the mp3 demos sound great, but i prefer to master the architecture and custom patch each sound. no original sounds, no original music :p all it takes is some exploration and implementation.

there's no manual but the homepage has a run-down on the features, and customer support is excellent! at this time jorgen seems to be releasing new features for one or another of his synths every couple of days, and has asked me some questions about new features for audiosynth, which is kinda cool. all his synths offer very functional free versions, so why are you even reading this :) the pro version has some useful parameters, but the freebie is pretty darn capable.

plus i have to appreciate any designer that realises the value of including different filter types, esp. high pass (well there's two of them :)Read Review